


The Next Note, the Next Day

by shutterbug



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Marriage, Married Characters, Married Couple, Open Marriage, Sad, Season/Series 02, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 07:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19246501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shutterbug/pseuds/shutterbug
Summary: Tom always kept a stack of Post-Its on his bedside table. Well, not always. But, when he moved into Shiv’s apartment--on his first night--he placed the Post-Its and a pen at the base of the square-bottomed, modern lamp.Set S2. I hope S2 doesn't end up making this completely moot. But in the meantime, enjoy!





	The Next Note, the Next Day

**Author's Note:**

> A shout out to @soot-and-snide and @treasuredthings for their mutual Succession excitement! Love you!

Tom always kept a stack of Post-Its on his bedside table. Well, not _always._ But, when he moved into Shiv’s apartment--on his first night--he placed the Post-Its and a pen at the base of the square-bottomed, modern lamp.

As soon as she could, Shiv relegated _his_ decor to storage, but he agreed. He understood. He helped her pack his things away and handed them over to her hired men.

“You know where to put them,” she said. Tom smiled and handed the stout, Hispanic man a fifty.

Early in their relationship, he scribbled hasty notes, glancing over to study her--her face, her body. He would pause to remember how she arched her neck and flattened her hands against his chest as she rode him--oh, fuck, who was he kidding? Fucked his _brains_ out, the night before. Then he would simply draw a heart on the paper. Or a smiley face. Or, in all-caps, ‘ _LOVE YOU, GOOSEY! HONK, HONK!_ ’

But this morning, he shakes the sleep from his head and steadies himself on the mattress, staring at the pale yellow stack of Post-Its.

His mind replays Tuesday morning.

He met Shiv in the kitchen.

“You should have breakfast,” he said. “I can make something for you.”

“No time. Sorry, sweetie.”

“Are you sure I can’t come with you?”

She distributed a series of pecks to his cheek and patted his shoulders. “It’s just a stupid-ass fundraiser. Lobbyists. Party leadership. You’d be bored.”

He nodded and watched her leave. Stayed put--in his boxers and argyle-patterned socks--until the door shut behind her.

That night, he went to bed alone. He took hold of himself, stroked his dick and groaned at the ceiling. All the while, he tried not to think of what Shiv was up to, where she was, or who she was with. He came in weak spurts--like an insecure teenager--and felt the heat in his cheeks as he wiped himself clean with a handful of tissues.

The next day, Greg became the object of sporadic barks and insults. Tom imagined that he spoke to someone else, and that Shiv stood nearby, flashing him a wide, proud smile.

He went to bed early that night. Shiv woke him up well into a REM cycle when she collapsed into bed, vodka on her breath and sex on her skin. In her hair. On her clothes.

The scent of another man wafted into his nostrils.

He laid awake, carrying out both sides of a make-believe conversation. Make-believe Shiv on one side. His make-believe self on the other. Make-believe Shiv apologized. His make-believe self accepted her apology, hugged her, kissed her. Made love to her. Slow, and deep, and fucking _emotional._ Make-believe Shiv touched him with tenderness and whispered her love for him into his ear, then followed her words with kisses. Long, soft kisses. No teeth this time.

 _Kill them with kindness,_ his mother had always told him.

‘Well, _Mom_ ,’ he wanted to say, ‘that doesn’t always _work_. In fact, it hardly _ever_ works.’ Not around here, anyway. Saint Paul and New York City were entirely different worlds, populated with entirely different kinds of people. Alien-like people. And he had thrown himself at the mercy of the Mother Ship, suffered through countless trial-and-error experiments, and had learned to walk among those crisp-suited, shiny-shoed, four-hundred-dollar-hair-cut humanoids with a- _fuck_ ing- _plomb_.

But in his private moments, the boy he always was--the man he had become, before New York, before Shiv, before Waystar--springs to the surface and guides his actions with naive hope.

So when he crawls out of bed that morning, he leans over his bedside table and starts to scrawl  a note to Shiv. Shiv, who lays sprawled across more than half the bed with a spiderweb-thread of drool stretching from her mouth to her pillow.

 _That_ was a sight those hit-it-and-quit-it, wham-bam fuckers would never see. _This_ \--this sleeping, silent, day-dirty Shiv--this was for _him._

His hand hovers over the notepad. He is unsure whether he should feel comforted or jealous. Despite his _supreme_ efforts to shove the thought away, he can’t help but feel both.

He wants to kiss her. Wants to flip her over and _fuck_ her, before she fully wakes up. Make her remember who she married. But he can’t. He can’t do that to her.

He respects her. He loves her.

He wants to look her in the eyes when he’s inside of her.

So he tears his eyes away from her and continues to write.

_'--ment meeting until 5:30, but I’ll be home after. I’m thinking salmon for dinner. I’ll do the beurre noisette. I know it’s your favorite.'_

He turns his head and looks at her. With gentle, delicate pressure, he touches his lips to her forehead.

_'Just like you’re my favorite. I love you.'_

He sticks the note to the bathroom mirror, tilts his head, reads it once over, then leaves for the office.

He returns to a silent apartment.

He searches the bathroom first. Shiv’s make up--her everyday, must-have make up--is gone. Her suitcase, nowhere to be found. Her favorite shoes, not there.  

In the kitchen, he unwraps the salmon and lifts the lid of the trash to throw away the paper. But there, staring him in the face, is his own handwriting. His note.

His own _I love you_ thrown back in his face.

His other notes, he realizes, must have met the same fate. They must be lying in a landfill somewhere. Somewhere in Jersey.

In _Jersey._

Fuck.

With a strangled shout, he throws the salmon into the sink. It lands with a wet _thud._ He turns around, leaning against the counter, and slides down to the floor. He hugs his knees to his chest.

He berates himself for wondering when Shiv will come back.

Eventually, he cleans the sink, letting the salmon fall beside his note in the trash. Then, with stoic determination, he snatches up his stack of Post-Its and hurls them on top of the salmon.

“I thought you were going to make salmon,” Shiv says the next day, when she drops her handbag and suitcase beside the island.

He shrugs. “It didn’t work out,” he replies, meeting her eyes. Waiting for her response.

She stares at him for a second before she says, “Oh. Sure.”

Her easy tone stabs at his heart.

“Okay. No problem.”

As she strides past him, he inhales. An unfamiliar cologne drifts in her wake. He watches her as she walks to the bedroom, his chest tight, his windpipe as narrow as a cocktail straw.

Despite every instinct in his body, he still leaves a note, scribbled on a receipt he should save for his expense report. But he doesn’t give a shit. He flattens it out and writes: ' _I really do love you. I'm glad you're back.'_

He chokes down his surprise, later that night, when he finds that note in the trash.


End file.
